A Longitudinal Investigation of the Home Literacy Environment and Shared Book Reading in Young Children With Hearing Loss.
Jean L DesJardin, Carren J Stika, Laurie S Eisenberg and 4 others
PMID 28234669WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of children with hearing loss found shared book reading harder at 24 months, and those children had lower language scores.
For children with hearing loss, early interactive reading and child enjoyment linked to later language, but causation is not shown.
Key findings
01Children with hearing loss had significantly lower receptive and expressive language scores than children with normal hearing at 24 and 36 months.
02At 24 months, 93.8% of parents of children with hearing loss indicated some difficulty to very difficult reading, compared with 73.5% of parents of children with normal hearing.
03For children with hearing loss, child enjoyment, parent engagement, teacher techniques, higher-level facilitative language techniques, and interactive reading at 12 months were associated with receptive or expressive language scores at 36 months.
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How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 17 children with hearing loss were included, and some families withdrew, so statistical power was low. The study was observational and used correlations, so it cannot show that shared book reading behaviors caused better language. Parent perceptions were self-report and may have been influenced by children's language skills. The sample was mostly Caucasian and married, with mean family income about $50,000, so results may not generalize to other family backgrounds. All children with hearing loss used hearing aids and were receiving early intervention, so findings may not apply to children with cochlear implants or no intervention. Children with hearing loss varied in weekly speech-language therapy and early intervention settings, so those supports may also influence language. The 36-month books were wordless, which may have changed how parents and children interacted. Some families spoke a second language at home, and the paper notes parents may have been less comfortable reading in front of cameras.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that shared book reading difficulty or lower interactive reading causes language delays. The study measured associations, and children's language skills may have influenced parent perceptions and behaviors.